We study human capital reallocation following firm-specific idiosyncratic shocks. Theory offers diverging predictions as to whether human capital gets reallocated to its most productive use following these shocks. To empirically test these predictions, we focus on relegation battles in the...

While businesses require funding to start and grow, they also rely on human capital, which affects how they raise funds. Labor market frictions make financing labor different than financing capital. Unlike capital, labor cannot be owned and can act strategically. Workers face unemployment costs,...

In this handbook of labor economics chapter we examine the relationship between Human Resource Management (HRM) and productivity. HRM includes incentive pay (individual and group) as well as many non-pay aspects of the employment relationship such as matching (hiring and firing) and work...

Traditional human capital theory emphasizes a worker's investment in knowledge. However, when a worker is faced with day-to-day problems on the job, the solutions to the problems often require more knowledge from a team of experts within the firm. When a worker taps into the knowledge of...

Although economic models of training decisions are framed in terms of a company's calculation of the costs and benefits of such training, empirical work has never been able to test this model directly on company behavior. This paper utilizes a unique database to analyze the determinants of the...

Many researchers in both economics departments and business schools recently have become interested in examining how much of an effect human resource decisions and policies have on firm performance. This paper surveys the literature on unionism and productivity and discusses its implications for...

How do regions acquire the knowledge they need to diversify their economic activities? How does the migration of workers among firms and industries contribute to the diffusion of that knowledge? Here we measure the industry, occupation, and location specific knowledge carried by workers from one...

We estimate how exogenous worker exits affect firms' demand for incumbent workers and new hires. Drawing on administrative data from Germany, we analyze 34,000 unexpected worker deaths, which, on average, raise the remaining workers' wages and retention probabilities. The average effect masks...